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Manage single recipients (subscribe, unsubscribe, update)
MailUp provides several ways to add a new subscriber and manage either data fields or subscription status. If you’re in the process of developing a generic application interacting with multiple accounts, it must be considered that personal data fields may differ from account to account.
We recommend to always make use of the “retrieve field names” feature, returning the actual field names and Id occurences for a particular admin console account. Those returned occurrences can be used to update personal data recipient fields afterwards.
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Click here to expand and see available solutions and recommended methods
HTTP GET/POST and subscription forms
Subscription forms are based on HTTP GET/POST methods, which allow subscription unsubscription, check subscription status and update for a single recipient. These methods support optin, confirmed optin, optout, fields update, unsubscription. Refer to this page if you want to build a custom subscription form using AJAX. Retrieve fields feature is not available with HTTP GET/POST.
Click here to expand for recommended methods
Action | Comments | Get/Post API |
| Confirm successful communication with the API | This method may be useful if your application needs to ping mailup to check current authentication and connection statuses. | WSActivation.aspx |
Activation | You can enable HTTP GET/POST calls for any caller, you can restrict usage to a set of IPs or you can call a method that registers the caller IP in order to add it to the list of authorized IPs. | WSActivation.aspx |
Single Subscribe (client side) | Subscribes a single recipient to one or more lists (e.g. during checkout or registration) by calling a page that redirects to a landing page displaying the result | Subscribe.aspx |
| Single Subscribe (server side1) | Subscribes a single recipient to one or more lists (e.g. during checkout or registration) and returning a result to the caller | Xmlsubscribe.aspx |
Single Unsubscribe (server side1) | Unsubscribes a single recipient from one or more lists (e.g. customer updates their account in the storefront) and returning a result | XmlUnsubscribe.aspx |
Single Update (server side1) | Updates a single recipient based on mapped data fields (e.g. first name, last name, etc) and returning a result | XmlUpdSubscriber.aspx |
Retrieve subscription status for a specific customer and list (server side1) | Retrieves recipient’s status ( subscribed, pending or unsubscribed ) | XmlChkSubscriber.aspx |
(1) requires server side development, and in case of AJAX implementations, this operation cannot be done directly from a client page because cross domain requests are blocked by the "same origin policy"
REST API
Rest API is the most complete solution for managing a single subscriber (subscription status, group membership and personal data fields) and it is the only MailUp solution that allows removal of a single recipient from a group. Adding a new recipient is an asynchronous process(i.e. method response does not mean that the operation is completed, you could use a specific method to get the status of requested operation). Retreive fields feature is available with GET /Console/Recipient/DynamicFields
Click here to expand for recommended methods
Action | Comments | REST API |
Confirm successful communication with the API | Returns authentication information. | GET /Console/Authentication/Info |
Retrieve Lists | Retrieves all lists related informaton | GET /Console/User/Lists |
| Retrieve Groups | Retrieves groups for a certain list | GET /Console/List/{ID_LIST}/Groups |
Retrieve Fields | Retrieves the actual personal data field names along with ids. Useful for adding or updating subscribers’ personal information afterwards. | GET /Console/Recipient/DynamicFields |
Single Subscribe | Subscribes a single recipient to one or more lists (e.g. during checkout or registration) | POST /Console/List/{id_List}/Subscribe/{id_Recipient} |
Single Unsubscribe | Unsubscribes a single recipient from one or more lists (e.g. customer updates their account in the storefront) | DELETE /Console/List/{id_List}/Subscribe/{id_Recipient} |
Single Update | Updates a single recipient based on mapped data fields (e.g. first name, last name, etc) | PUT /Console/Recipient/Detail |
Retrieve subscription status for a specific customer and list | Returns all subscribed recipients to a certain list | GET /Console/List/{id_List}/Recipients/Subscribed?filterby="Email.Contains('{Email}')" |
Webhooks
You can configure webhooks to enable a fast callback to your website everytime a recipient changes the subscription status or any of the personal data fields (e.g. by filling in and submitting to an autoprofile form). Callback method can be configured in order to include recipient's details as method parameter. Webhooks are managed by a worker process that is like a "frequent cron": you may experience some minutes of delay between the action and the corresponding callback. Bounces cannot be notified through webhooks.
SOAP API
You can extend the use of StartImportProcess method of MailUpImport SOAP API, that is designed for bulk import, to work with a single recipient. This method allows optin, confirmed optin, forced optin, optout, fields update, unsubscription. Adding or updating a recipient with SOAP API is an asynchronous process (i.e. method response does not mean that the operation is completed, you could use a specific method to get the status of requested operation). Method MailUpSend.GetFields can be used to retreive field names.
Click here to expand for recommended methods
Action | Comments | SOAP Web Services |
Confirm successful communication with the API | This method has to be used to authenticate the admin console user against the web service. | MailUpSend.LoginFromId |
Retrieve Lists | Retrieves all lists related informaton | |
| Retrieve Groups | Retrieves groups | MailUpImport.GetNlLists or WS_MailUpSend.GetGroups |
Retrieve Fields | Retrieves the actual personal data field names along with ids. Useful for adding or updating subscribers’ personal information afterwards. | MailUpSend.GetFields |
Single Subscribe | Subscribes a single recipient to one or more lists (e.g. during checkout or registration) | MailUpImport.StartImportProcesses |
Single Unsubscribe | Unsubscribes a single recipient from one or more lists (e.g. customer updates their account in the storefront) | MailUpImport.StartImportProcesses |
Single Update | Updates a single recipient based on mapped data fields (e.g. first name, last name, etc) | MailUpImport.StartImportProcesses |
Retrieve subscription status for a specific recipient/list | N/A | N/A |
Synchronize recipients between your application and MailUp (i.e. bulk import and/or export)
You may need to transfer a set of recipients, possibly with their personal data, from your application to MailUp; or viceversa. Solutions that work well with a single recipient may not be suitable for big amounts of recipients, in this case bulk solutions are required.
When plannin a synchronization approach you must take care about how unsubscription is made. In particular, you should be aware that, when importing subscribers that are already present and unsubscribed in specified MailUp list, unsubscription status is not changed, except for the cases in which you deliberately set an API option that forces subscription.
- If unsubscription is natively managed by MailUp via the "Unsubscribe" link normally nested in the email footer, forcing subscription should be considered only when an unsubscribed recipient specificly asks to be subscribed again
- If unsubscription is managed by an external system outside MailUp (i.e the "Unsubscribe" link in email footer leads to an external site) then the external application runs as "master" database and you should consider to force subscription whenever you import recipients.
Several possible solutions are available
Click here to expand and see available solutions and recommended methods
FTP based integrations
You can request your MailUp representative for a FTP Batch Process for massive data transfer using files CSV files. This feature can be used for very large amounts of recipients (this kind of process has been successfully tested with 4 millions of recipients in a single file).
Click here to know more about available FTP transfer types
You can request this feature to
Data transmission does not take place in real time: it is usually configured on a daily or weekly basis, but for specific cases even hourly schedule can be considered )
FTP based integrations can also be customized to import external campaign codes ( meant as customer’s application internal campaign or recipient identities ) without using personal data fields and to export email statistics with their reference to the external campaign code. This feature is not available with MailUp web services. More on this.
SOAP API
You can run MailUpImport SOAP API for an immediate import of recipients. In particular, you can use StartImportProcesses method, optionally combined with NewImportProcess if the amount of recipient is more than 5000. These methods also allow a batch import as "pending", and in this case, the confirmation email has to be manually sent using the admin console account. SOAP API is not bidirectional, so you cannot use it to export recipients from MailUp to your application.
Click here to expand for recommended methods
SOAP API + FTP
You can get the best of FTP and SOAP API by using SendMessageNL API method, which performs scheduled sending of a message to a set of recipients that are included in the FTP import file previously processed (message ID and filename are passed as method parameter). In this case you have to transfer the file to MailUp before calling the method. Export of subscribed and unsubscribed recipients can be done with an FTP based integration.
REST API
Rest API allows immediate and bidirectional import and export of recipients. Due to restriction on HTTP channel, no more than 7MB input files can be uploaded with a single import. For the export of recipients the paging feature is recommended to keep control on maximum size of transferred data. REST API is the only MailUp solution that allows removal of a single recipient from a group.
Click here to expand for recommended methods
Action | Comments | SOAP Web Services |
Confirm successful communication with the API | Returns authentication information. | GET /Console/Authentication/Info |
Retrieve Lists | Retrieves all lists related informaton | GET /Console/User/Lists |
| Retrieve Groups | Retrieves groups for a certain list | GET /Console/List/{ID_LIST}/Groups |
Retrieve Fields | Retrieves the actual personal data field names along with ids. Useful for adding or updating subscribers’ personal information afterwards. | GET /Console/Recipient/DynamicFields |
Bulk Subscribe | Subscribes a set of recipients to a list | POST /Console/List/{id_List}/Recipients or POST /Console/Group/{ID_GROUP}/Recipients |
Bulk Unsubscribe | Unsubscribes a set of recipients from a list | N/A |
Bulk Update | Updates personal data fields of a set of recipients | POST /Console/List/{id_List}/Recipients or POST /Console/Group/{ID_GROUP}/Recipients |
Retrieve list of subscribers | Retrieves recipients that subscribed to a certain list | GET /Console/List/{ID_LIST}/Recipients/Subscribed |
Manage suppression lists (i.e. "do not email" lists of recipients)
Suppression lists are not natively supported by MailUp but you can create a dedicated group of recipients to exclude from sending. In order to automate the process, you can contact MailUp support department and request for the configuration of an FTP based integration with a batch process runing hourly. This process has to be set to import in a new group ( where the destination group name mathces the actual import file name) the recipents that are listed in the file to be imported. Then, when you access to MailUp admin console, you can schedule or fire your campaign to be sent to "all subscribers except for the recipients that belong to a certain group". It should be easy for you to identify the right group because it has the name of the imported file plus a timestamp.
Send transactional and other personalized emails
Sending messages through MailUp from an external application allows you to take advantage of:
- The high reputation and scalability of the MailUp sending infrastructure
- Automatic bounce and feedback loop management
- Ability to include dynamic tags and dynamic content
- Ability to check the send status via API
The use of dynamic fields (or dynamic tags) allows you to send individual email messages containing some personalized content. These messages - often transactional emails - typically consist of a template plus some personalized fields: for example, a password reminder, a form submission confirmation, an order confirmation, and so on. MailUp can manage the whole process automatically:
- Messages are sent out very quickly, due to a robust and scalable infrastructure that guarantees immediate sending (except in case of grey listing on destination servers).
- There are no bandwidth restrictions and a dedicated channel is used for sending these messages (no queue-related delay).
- Automated processes can be activated following actions (subscribe, open, click or personal field update ) that recipients might have performed.
- NOTE: this channel cannot be used to send bulk email messages, but rather only for transactional emails. There are limitations in place that prevent system abuse (see API use policy).
Click here to expand and learn how you can send transactional messages using MailUp
MailUp can send transactional emails in three ways. Depending on the speed and on the amount of messages to be sent, you can stick to the single option or, even better, you can mix them to get the best result.
By using the method used to send confirmation messages
MailUp sends a confirmation message to subscribers through an automatic procedure. Subscription can take place in two ways:
The content of the subscription confirmation message can be modified, so to make it correspond to the template of the message you want to send (only one confirmation message can be set for each list, but you can set up multiple lists within your MailUp account).
The confirmation message can be personalized with the recipient's personal data by using dynamic fields (up to 40 available when purchasing the Marketing+ package).
These confirmation messages can also contain a link triggering subsequent actions (opening of a messages page and automatic sending of another email), through the use of SUB link. A specific list can be created for the purpose, and each list can have a different sender address.
By using Web services
A web service allows the immediate sending of a single message. This procedure is much more flexible than the previous one, but it is recommended to strictly follow the instructions provided in the section describing this function.
The WS_MailUpSend.SendSingleNewsletter allows to send an email message with the indication of subject, recipients and contents. Dynamic fields (i.e. placeholders that are replaced with recipient's personal data values before sending) are supported, while dynamic content is not supported.
This is the best choice for transactional messages that have to be delivered in few seconds (e.g. password reminder, account credentials after signup), however this solution has some limitations (see API use policy and the box below). In many cases you can have a good trade-off by using either web services and SMTP relay service.
By using SMTP relay service
With SMTP+ feature, your application can take advantage of a high deliverability SMTP server provided by MailUp. No need of integration with MailUp API, all you need is a set of SMTP credentials. SMTP+ offers a scalable solution that is valid also for high volumes of transactional email messages to be sent. There is a couple of things to know: delivery time depends on the bandwidth agreed for that console account and dynamic fields are not supported. This is the best choice for big amounts of personalized messages that do not have to be delivered in few seconds.
Bulk email messages
This section describes the different ways through which MailUp can be used to send email messages to groups and lists of users without accessing the administration console. The methods described above can be used to send individual, personalized messages, such as transactional emails. However, if the goal is to send large amounts of messages or DEMs, the best practice to follow is described below.
Some possible scenarios are presented here - with the indication of the web services to be used - as examples of common scenarios. This is in no way an exhaustive overview of all the possible scenarios.
Please note that these cases do not talk about authentication and authorization, you should refer to the specific documentation of each technical solutions for these details.
Case 1: email message and recipients exist in the MailUp admin console (click here to expand)
You may want to send a message to a group of users and both the message and the recipients list are already available in the MailUp console.
SOAP API
- If the message has to be sent to all the recipients in a list the suggested method is WS_MailUpSend.SendNewsletter. Parameters "send_to = ALL" , list ID, message ID and time and date of sending must be specified. Message and list IDs can be found at the page Settings > Codes Tables in the MailUp console, or using GetLists() and GetNewsletters() methods.
- If the recipients belong to some groups in a list, when calling the SendNewsletter() method the group IDs must be specified as well.
- If the users share data that can be extracted using one of the MailUp filters (personal data, activity and geolocation filters, available in the Marketing+ package) when calling the SendNewsletter() method the filter to be applied must be indicated as well. Filters can be used in addition or as an alternative to groups. The great advantage of using them lies in the fact that all the recipients matching a certain condition are automatically included in the filter results, whereas a user must be inserted into a group for group membership.
REST API
- If the message has to be sent to all the recipients in a list you can call POST /Console/List/{id_List}/Email/{id_Message}/Send.
- If the message has to be sent to a group of a MailUp list you can call POST /Console/Group/{id_Group}/Email/{id_Message}/Send
Case 2: not all recipients exist in the MailUp admin console (click here to expand)
Similar to Case 1, but in this case a group of recipients has to be imported as well. Some of these recipients might be already subscribed in MailUp due to a previous signup to a newsletter, some others might be new subscribers. Here below some alternative solutions are listed, refer to Comparison Matrix to see how many recipients can be loaded with each solution.
SOAP API
- Through WS_MailUpImport methods a new temporary group is created (CreateGroup(groupName)) and a group of recipients is imported to it (StartImportProcess(groupID, recipients,…)). This operation may last several minutes, depending on how large the group is, and it can be monitored using GetProcessDetails(). Once the import has completed, SendNewsletter(groupID) method can be used to perform the sending. At the end of the process the group which was created for the purpose must be deleted using DeleteGroup().
- The procedure above described is less effective when there are large amounts of data to be imported, so it may be useful to use an alternative procedure that provides for a "bulk" import from a file following an input via web service. SendMessageNL(fileName, listId, messageId, timeDateSending,…) method allows to schedule a sending for the desired time and date, then asynchronously executes the following operations:
- Creation of a temporary group named "Automatic NN", where NN is a progressive number
- Import to this group of the recipients indicated in the file
- Sending of the message at the scheduled time and date
REST API
REST API supports only sending to a single group or to the whole list
- To import recipients into a group of a MailUp list you may use POST /Console/Group/{ID_GROUP}/Recipients, while POST /Console/List/{id_List}/Recipients can be used to simply import into a MailUp list without specifying a group. Use POST /Console/List/{ID_LIST}/Group if you also need to create a new group.
- Use the methods listed in Case #1 for sending email message with REST API
LIST+
List+ allows you to enclose a list of recipients to the message to be sent (by using a file named one2many.import) instead of sending to lists or groups that are already present in MailUp. Click here for more information about this feature
Case 3: creating and sending a message via the MailUp API (click here to expand)
In some cases it may be necessary to import into MailUp a message created using an external system.
SOAP API
The CreateNewsletters() method allows the creation of a new message where the parameter to be passed is the body of the message (html, text or URL that points to the html file).
It is also possible to use the SendNewsletterFast() method, which conveys to a single call the information that can be drawn from the calls to CreateNewsletters() and SendNewsletter() methods.
REST API
REST API provides more features than SOAP API about creation and editing of an email message. With REST you can fully handle message tags, images and attachments.
- To create a message use POST /Console/List/{id_List}/Email, passing message content as parameter. Check out this page to know more about the available options
- Use the methods listed in Case #1 for sending email message with REST API
LIST+
With List+ you can create an email message with your email client or your application and send it to a MailUp specific email address. Depending on the specified address, this action can lead to
- save email message to MailUp and send it to all the recipients of a MailUp list
- save email message to MailUp and send it to all the recipients of one or more groups in a MailUp list
- save email message to MailUp without sending it
- save email message to MailUp and send it to a recipient for test purposes
This solution is very powerful if you want to work outside the MailUp console account and it has some interesting additional features like automatic upload of images, support for dynamic fields and sender verification. In addition, List+ allows you to enclose a list of recipients (by using a file named one2many.import) instead of sending to existing lists or groups.
SMTP+
With SMTP+ you can create email messages with your email client or your application and send them to the recipients through MailUp. In this case MailUp acts mainly as a high deliverability SMTP server, but it also provides important features like bounce management and statistics. The content of sent message is not saved to MailUp and delivery speed depends on agreed bandwidth for your account.
Case 4: cloning a message to track separate mailings (click here to expand)
Most customers need to track campaign results. When the same message is sent more than once (three different times, to three different groups), statistics are accumulated and pertain to all mailings, not the three individual mailings. To work around, you can make a copy of a message by cloning it before sending.
SOAP API
You can use the CloneMessage() method
REST API
You can use GET /Console/List/{id_List}/Email/{id_Message} to get message content and then you need to create an identical message with POST /Console/List/{id_List}/Email
Case 5: massive sending of personalized messages via Web Services (click here to expand)
If you are in need to send a high number of personalized messages through the API, please contact us. We can create custom MailUp configurations for you that will address your needs. For example, we worked with a Web site that needed to send hundreds of thousands of personalized alerts on a daily basis, and needed to do so through the MailUp API.
SOAP API, REST API and List+
You can create personalized sections within your email by means of Dynamic Content feature and MailUp filters. Dynamic Content is not available with email messages sent with HTTP GET/POST API, SendSingleNewsletter (SOAP API) and SMTP+
SMTP+
With SMTP+ you can create email messages with a fully personalized content that varies for each recipient. Using your email client or your application you can send these messages to the recipients through MailUp. In this case MailUp acts mainly as a high deliverability SMTP server, but it also provides important features like bounce management and statistics. The content of sent message is not saved on MailUp and delivery speed depends on agreed bandwidth for your account.
Send Transactional or Bulk SMS
As for the email channel, the term "transactional SMS" is usually used to distinguish messages that do not belong to "Promotional" or "Bulk" categories.
Click here to expand and see available methods
SOAP API, FTP
SOAP API offers a reliable and scalable solution for transactional SMS with SendDirectSMS, while other solutions are available for Bulk SMS, including "SMS sending from CSV file" feature that is provided for bulk sending personalized text messages using FTP. REST API does not support SMS yet.
The following table includes the recommended API methods to be used to perform certain tasks.
| Num. | Action | Description | SOAP API | FTP |
|---|
| 1 | Create new text message | Create a new text message with dynamic fields (optional) that can then be used as "existing message" fro the actions listed below
(MESSAGE_ID is returned). New message is also available on MailUp console. | CreateSMS | |
| 2 | Single sending of EXISTING messages
to a specified recipient | A single existing text message is sent to a single recipient by specifying MESSAGE_ID and destination number.
Message shall be previously created and it can be customized by means of dynamic fields | SendSingleSMS | |
| 3 | Single sending of NEW messages
to a specified recipient | In this case existing messages cannot be used, a brand new text message (with or without dynamic fields) has to be created
and sent to a single recipient | SendDirectSMS | |
| 4 | Bulk sending of EXISTING messages
to all subscribers or groups of them | A single existing text message is sent to many recipients (e.g. all list subscribers, one or more groups ...). by specifying
MESSAGE_ID and List/group identifiers
Message shall be previously created and it can be customized by means of dynamic fields | SendSMS | |
| 5 | Bulk sending of NEW messages
to all subscribers or groups of them | A new text message (with or without dynamic fields) has to be created and sent to a list of subscribers.
| CreateSMS + SendSMS
or SendSmsFast | |
| 6 | Bulk sending of NEW messages
to a list of recipients with a specific
text message for each recipient | In some cases customization through dynamic fields could be not enough
A list of {recipient + message text for this recipient} has to be provided as input and all messages shall be sent as a single campaign.
This option has not the side effects of option #5 and it also allows sending of completely different messages for each recipient. | N/A | SMS sending from CSV file |
| 7 | Immediate sending | For text messages to be sent as soon as possible | SendSingleSMS
SendDirectSMS
SendSMS
SendSmsFast | SMS sending from CSV file |
| 8 | Scheduled sending | For text messages to be sent at specified time | SendSMS
SendSmsFast | SMS sending from CSV file |
| 9 | Sending of concatenated messages | When message length is higher than 160 characters (or higher than 70 chars if "Unicode" (use Unicode for non western alphabets) | SendSingleSMS
SendDirectSMS
SendSMS
SendSmsFast | SMS sending from CSV file |
Extract or display statistics
Email statistics are mainly the number and the details about opens and clicks, usually grouped by message. About SMS we can only know the delivery status and, in case of error, the error code.
Click here to expand and see available methods
REST API
REST API offer the best suite about MailUp statistics, also allowing filtered and paged searches. More on this page
FTP
A batch export can be configured to periodically export to a CSV file the statistics of email and/or SMS messages. Export frequency can be set for hourly to forth weekly schedules. Contact us to request for a batch export for your console account (non standard configurations may require an extra fee). More on this page
SOAP API
WebService MailupReport provides a couple of methods to retreive statistics by message or by recipient. This solution runs fine only when returned data size is relatively small (e.g. lower than 100 items)
Frontend
Frontend pages provide a reduced version of some statistics pages of the console account, so that an external application can embed them. Available pages are similar to Summary Report and Opens report.